Page 158 of The Earl She Once Saved

Rafe held the letter nearer the lamp. He could not know from one sheet what had happened to that marriage. The woman might have been lying about it. Roland might have found some lawful means to end it. Yet the letter was recent, and its writer spoke as a wife who had been abandoned and was still waiting to be answered. Crote named the Edinburgh match before Rafe ever saw her words.

If Roland had a living wife when he took Verity to the altar, Verity’s marriage to him had never been lawful. Roland might have married her privately in Scotland, where a declaration before witnesses could bind a couple without a church ceremony or an entry in an English parish register.

With the evidence left in Scotland and no announcement sent south, he could have presented himself as a bachelor to Verity’s family, trusting his rank to lend authority to the lie. Everything he claimed through it, his right to command her, the name he used to hold her fast, would have to be examined from the beginning.

Rafe laid the page flat and copied the York address onto a scrap of paper. He read the name once more before replacing the letter in its fold. Nothing on the writing table could tell Roland what had been found.

At the door, he paused to steady his breathing. Verity was somewhere upstairs, perhaps with Win, perhaps trying to repair the portrait Roland had torn. He went instead to Ezra’s room. Ezra opened the door in shirtsleeves, with a book in his hand. One look at Rafe’s face, and he set it down.

“What has happened?”

Rafe told him about Crote, the letter and the address in York. Ezra listened without speaking. When Rafe finished, his friend pulled out a chair.

“You are going to find her.”

“Yes. I need to hear her account and find proof of the marriage.”

“And Verity?”

“I have told no one. I will tell her when there is something she can use.”

Ezra looked toward the travel bag half packed beside his bed. He intended to ride south within days. Rafe saw him measure that plan against what he had just heard.

“I will come with you,” Ezra offered.

“You need not change your journey.”

“I know.”

Rafe trusted him with his life. He trusted him with Verity’s chance of freedom, too. They agreed to leave before the household woke, when they could pass through the yard without Roland learning which road they took.

Before first light, Rafe saddled his horse beneath the stable lantern. Ezra came carrying his bag and took the time he needed to mount. Beyond the gates, the road to York lay dark between the hedges.

Rafe looked once toward the house. No lamp burned in Verity’s window. He hoped she was sleeping.

Then Ezra joined him, and they rode for the woman whose account might set them all free.

Chapter 27

Rafe’s horse was gone from the stable when Verity came down in the morning. Ezra’s stall stood empty as well.

She had woken with thinking of the garden: Sergeant forcing himself between them, Rafe looking at her for a long moment before he said he thought she knew why he had refused Celestine. She told him she trusted him. By breakfast, he had ridden away without a word.

Win learned only that both men left before first light. Neither asked for a carriage or sent word of when they would return.

“They may have had business in York,” she offered.

“Perhaps.”

Verity heard the disappointment in her own voice and disliked it. Rafe had a life beyond Edgeworth and owed her no account of his movements. Only yesterday he sent for Henshaw and sat with her while she described Roland’s threats. He promised not to leave her to face his brother alone. One unannounced journey could not undo all of that.

Still, his absence hurt.

On the moor road she had turned her mare toward home because he said he would stand with her. Yesterday, in the garden, she let herself tell him how far that promise carried her. Now she had to stop herself from listening for his step whenever someone crossed the hall.

She knew too well how a departure before dawn could change a house. Roland left that way six years ago. Verity came downstairs to find his rooms cleared. He had not even troubled to say goodbye. She hated that an empty stable could bring back even a breath of the same fear. Rafe was not Roland. She said she trusted him, and she meant it.

Sergeant came to rest his chin upon her knee. She stroked his head until Win brought her tea, then made herself open the household accounts.